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I am a bit confused by where i see &, used in these expressions around category names...Is there a fixed format to indicate category names?

Sorry for the confusion. "&" is just a shortcut we use to indicate moving to the next search screen, where you can further refine the search by selecting DirecTV's "canned" categories and sub-categories. /steve

I wanted to post a couple very successful autorecord searches so far for NHL hockey.

Red Wings games - AALL Red Wings Live NNOT Post Pre CCHAN 663 664

This gets me all Red Wings games live broadcast but not the Pre and Post game shows (which are called "Red Wings Live" thus why I need to exclude them) on FSN Detroit and FSN Plus. Default 1 pad at the end. This has recorded every game so far.

Red Wings Pre-game shows: AALL Red Wings Live Pre CCHAN 663 664This gets the pre-game shows. What's funny is that they don't seem to appear in the ToDo list until the day of. Not sure why.

Save search for all Red Wings games - AALL Red Wings Live CCHAN 215 664This will pull up all games and live programs from NHL Network, Versus and FSN Detroit. No autorecord on this one.

I wanted to post a couple very successful autorecord searches so far for NHL hockey.

I too, have had great and immediate success with searches that include NNOT and CCHAN. The seem to populate immediately, and and set recording option in a very short time.

( Notre Dame is still showing no events this week. Illinois is showing 3, but only one is set to record ! I'm running out of time again. Can I be that it is detecting the other 2 games as duplicates of ILLINOIS, even though one is Northen Illinois @ .... and the other is (U of) Illinois @ ....... ???? Time will tell !)

I wanted to post a couple very successful autorecord searches so far for NHL hockey.

Red Wings games - AALL Red Wings Live NNOT Post Pre CCHAN 663 664

This gets me all Red Wings games live broadcast but not the Pre and Post game shows (which are called "Red Wings Live" thus why I need to exclude them) on FSN Detroit and FSN Plus. Default 1 pad at the end. This has recorded every game so far.

Red Wings Pre-game shows: AALL Red Wings Live Pre CCHAN 663 664This gets the pre-game shows. What's funny is that they don't seem to appear in the ToDo list until the day of. Not sure why.

Save search for all Red Wings games - AALL Red Wings Live CCHAN 215 664This will pull up all games and live programs from NHL Network, Versus and FSN Detroit. No autorecord on this one.

To avoid the pre and post game shows, and any other shows that are not an actual game but have the word lakers in them, (like specials, etc) I use the word events as part of my AALL, and that gets rid of the other programs for me...

I've reduced my SLs from 48 to 30 using an idea suggested by oldfantom. I added Cathouse and Football Night In America. Would've saved more slots but for the fact that I had previously applied two other SL-saving tactics which I had to stop using.

BTW, searching for plain old FIRST TASTE crashed twice in a row. Searching went on for a while, but then the screen filled with the current program, and none of the remote buttons or front-panel buttons would work. Had to do an RBR or pull the plug.

Since this is happening under 0x255, which is about to be superseded, I don't suppose there's any use in submitting a report -- especially because that's hard to do under 0x255.

BTW, searching for plain old FIRST TASTE crashed twice in a row. Searching went on for a while, but then the screen filled with the current program, and none of the remote buttons or front-panel buttons would work. Had to do an RBR or pull the plug.

Since this is happening under 0x255, which is about to be superseded, I don't suppose there's any use in submitting a report -- especially because that's hard to do under 0x255.

FYI. Just tried "first taste" on an HR20-700 under the current CE. I got "no matches" after about a 1-second wait, so hopefully they already fixed what was wrong. /steve

OK, I read your statement to mean the opposite. I mistakenly thought you wrote that "at islanders" and "islanders at" would find the same results.

BTW with the new CCHAN filter addition I cut my search down to a single entry and it works great!. I can now use "ISLANDERS CCHAN 634 639", SHOW TYPE, EVENTS. This only records games and allows recording of the overnight replays in the event of a conflict.

I've reduced my SLs from 48 to 30 using an idea suggested by oldfantom... The general form of oldfantom's idea is:

AANY <a series of unique keywords> TTITLE CCHAN n & Show Type, Series

The quoted post is 3 posts above. Here's why I saved only 18 SLs rather than 30:

I added 5 SLs: My Own Worst Enemy, Letterman, Cathouse, Norton and Football Night In America. And I would've saved 7 more slots but for the fact that I had previously applied other SL-saving tactics which I had to stop using:

1. Three CSI series were being recorded with one CSI TTITLE.

2. Five shows were being recorded by extending the preceding shows each by one hour:• The Big Bang Theory + Two And A Half Men• Cold Case + The Unit• House + Fringe• NCIS + The Mentalist• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles + Prison Break

Piggybacking like that turned out to be not such a good idea for three reasons:• Sometimes a show (like Cold Case) ends one minute past the hour.• The Guide gives no indication that the extra show will be recorded.• The Playlist offers no clue about the existence of an extra hour.

As suggested to me, I am posting an issue here that I've been battling for a long time, in hopes it might be resolved. This was also posted in the issues thread:

I have a keyword auto record set up for the Colts, I don't pick Sports and Football for the category and sub category because to do so, gets me all the local sports talk shows on the Colts, which I don't want.

So I set up Colts NNOT High Def>Show Types>Live, because as I mentioned before, this is a DVR that's hooked up to an SDTV.

For the upcoming Colts vs Packers game it finally added an auto record this afternoon, for the SUNDAY TICKET game, I don't have Sunday Ticket, until this latest software the same keyword search wasn't even bringing up the ST games, now it is again.

While it continues to list the SD version scheduled on my local CBS affiliate for tomorrow, it ignores it as far as adding it to the TDL. By listing the game I mean the search shows the game available on my local CBS station in SD.

It just won't add it. It did however add the Colts vs Titan's game that's upcoming but on a local MPeg 4 OTA station. Again I set it up for SD auto records. HD recordings take up way too much disk space and with an SDTV they are unnecessary. An hour long HD show is fine but a football game (which I normally add an hour to an hour and a half to anyway) can run the disk space to 6% or lower since my DVR normally only averages about 17% disk space available.

I am wondering if this is happening because it is an HD DVR, yet last year it scheduled some football games in SD for me, via auto record.

As suggested to me, I am posting an issue here that I've been battling for a long time, in hopes it might be resolved. This was also posted in the issues thread:

I have a keyword auto record set up for the Colts, I don't pick Sports and Football for the category and sub category because to do so, gets me all the local sports talk shows on the Colts, which I don't want.

So I set up Colts NNOT High Def>Show Types>Live, because as I mentioned before, this is a DVR that's hooked up to an SDTV.

For the upcoming Colts vs Packers game it finally added an auto record this afternoon, for the SUNDAY TICKET game, I don't have Sunday Ticket, until this latest software the same keyword search wasn't even bringing up the ST games, now it is again.

While it continues to list the SD version scheduled on my local CBS affiliate for tomorrow, it ignores it as far as adding it to the TDL. By listing the game I mean the search shows the game available on my local CBS station in SD.

It just won't add it. It did however add the Colts vs Titan's game that's upcoming but on a local MPeg 4 OTA station. Again I set it up for SD auto records. HD recordings take up way too much disk space and with an SDTV they are unnecessary. An hour long HD show is fine but a football game (which I normally add an hour to an hour and a half to anyway) can run the disk space to 6% or lower since my DVR normally only averages about 17% disk space available.

I am wondering if this is happening because it is an HD DVR, yet last year it scheduled some football games in SD for me, via auto record.

You might try colts NNOT HD & Show Type, Live and let it schedule the game on 713. When it comes time to actually record, since that's a channel you don't get, see if the GAMESEARCH function kicks-in and finds the SD local for you. If not, then you may have an issue. I say "may" because I don't know if GAMESEARCH is "smart enough to look for HD vs. SD. Only one way to find out. /steve

You might try colts NNOT HD & Show Type, Live and let it schedule the game on 713. When it comes time to actually record, since that's a channel you don't get, see if the GAMESEARCH function kicks-in and finds the SD local for you. If not, then you may have an issue. I say "may" because I don't know if GAMESEARCH is "smart enough to look for HD vs. SD. Only one way to find out. /steve

Thanks for the idea. I may try that if I am available when the game starts, in case gamesearch wouldn't work. I don't want to risk missing the game. Although with the way the Colts have been playing most games, it might be better if I did miss it.

If the Colts are always on your local then limit the autorecord to just your locals and ignore the 700s.

So

colts NNOT HD CCHAN 2 50

would only look at your locals. If it's always on the same one station, say channel 3, then just put CCHAN 3

The Colts games are usually on local channel 8 CBS, or on local 23 or rarely if ever, Fox 59.

The way the Colts are playing, scheduling to record their games may be a moot point soon.

Thank you for the suggestion though, I tried every possible search I could think of last night, none of them showed the game scheduled for today on CBS so that makes me think, since the game was clearly listed in the program guide that it was a guide error. It was causing the HR20 to not even find the game. So I just set up a one time record through the program guide for today's loss.

For the Colt's loss to the Titan's a week from Monday, that game is on the TDL already but again the DVR scheduled the HD version, a local OTA channel, channel no. 23-1 instead of just the SD channel 23. Even though I specified nnot high def.

I just tried this search and I got no results returned. I changed the CCHAN to 11 which is my local NBC affliliate. I have a HR20-100 running the current software. I am not part of the CE program.

I believe I discovered what's causing the problem. I tried AANY heroes life law TTITLE CCHAN 4, and got matches for Heroes and L&O:SVU, but not Life on the 25th.

AANY life TTITLE only shows results out to the 23d. I think the HR reaches a limit of how many matches on the word "life" it can display in the results (500 by my estimate). Apparently, DirecTV is filtering by the word first and channel second, so there are no instances of Life in an NBC title within the first 500 matches.

Good news is that it should record... it just won't get scheduled until it's closer to the date and the AUTORECORD SEARCH can "find" it in the first 500 results.

For the Colt's loss to the Titan's a week from Monday, that game is on the TDL already but again the DVR scheduled the HD version, a local OTA channel, channel no. 23-1 instead of just the SD channel 23. Even though I specified nnot high def.

Sorry it didn't work for you Melody. If you haven't already, you may want to follow up your "Issues" post with what actually happened yesterday.

RE: the Titan's game, I actually believe the Colts can win that game and bring the Titans down to earth. As you can imagine, I'm a Manning fan. /steve

... AANY life TTITLE only shows results out to the 23d. I think the HR reaches a limit of how many matches on the word "life" it can display in the results (500 by my estimate). Apparently, DirecTV is filtering by the word first and channel second, so there are no instances of Life in an NBC title within the first 500 matches...

I'm trying to understand...

I'm assuming & Show Type, Series is appended to the search...

Do you mean that there (apparently) are no instances of Life in an NBC (series) title within the first 500 matches on the word Life (including VOD titles and channels I can't get)?

Looks like the 500 result limit is the sum of all results from all keywords combined. So if there are 500 instances of life and america in titles before a Chuck or Heroes is found, they won't show in the results.

I'm guessing they will eventually be scheduled, but not until they can be found within the first 500 hits from all keywords.

Sorry it didn't work for you Melody. If you haven't already, you may want to follow up your "Issues" post with what actually happened yesterday.

RE: the Titan's game, I actually believe the Colts can win that game and bring the Titans down to earth. As you can imagine, I'm a Manning fan. /steve

I do appreciate your help. This has been a vexing issue for me for a couple of years now, not being able to auto record the Colts games.

PS. It probably didn't sound like it but I'm still a loyal Colts fan, my previous post was a bit tongue in cheek, I'm just really, really frustrated with the Colts right now. In all honesty though, with the way they are playing, I'd be beyond shocked if they could beat the undefeated Titan's. I'm a Manning fan too, as well as a Bob Sanders, Dallas Clark and Jeff Saturday fan.

Back to topic, I will continue trying to create a workable keyword auto record for the Colts, if I am successful I'll report back on the thread.

... I'm a Manning fan too, as well as a Bob Sanders, Dallas Clark and Jeff Saturday fan.

Great players all (even though I'm now a Vikings fan who bleeds purple). But, having been born and bred in Baltimore, it's always been hard for me to watch the Colts ever since the elder Irsay packed up the Baltimore Colts' stuff in a Mayflower moving van and stole away in the middle of the night.

I will continue trying to create a workable keyword auto record for the Colts, if I am successful I'll report back on the thread.

I was fooling around trying to construct an SD-only GIANTS AUTORECORD. I noticed that if I said NNOT hd, I'd still get an occasional "HD" show in the results, so I tried both NNOT hdtv and NNOT high (as part of "High-Def"), and both worked. There were no "HD's" in the results.

So why not try colts NNOT hdtv CCHAN 2 100 & Show Type, Events and see what matches you get for next week? Play with the channel range as appropriate.

I was fooling around trying to construct an SD-only GIANTS AUTORECORD. I noticed that if I said NNOT hd, I'd still get an occasional "HD" show in the results, so I tried both NNOT hdtv and NNOT high (as part of "High-Def"), and both worked. There were no "HD's" in the results.

So why not try colts NNOT hdtv CCHAN 2 100 & Show Type, Events and see what matches you get for next week? Play with the channel range as appropriate.

/steve

I have tried the auto record alternating between using nnot "high def" or nnot "hdtv" both netted the same results. I either get HD returns or the game on local OTA channels like say, 23-1 which still runs up way too much space on the hard drive.

I am looking to get the games stictly on an SD channel, the game will be listed on the SD channel in the guide but gets repeatedly ignored as far as the game actually being scheduled on the TDL.

I either didn't realize or had forgotten you could set for a range of channels, not really sure exactly how to do that. The games here are generally on 8, 13, 59 or even a primetime ESPN 206 game or the occasional primetime NFL Network game.

I have had better luck going with "Show Types>Live" rather then Events, events seems to give me other Colts oriented shows such as NFL Reply or games on the NFLHD network or ESPNHD. Using "Live" seems to narrow it down to games on my local affiliates in SD the DVR just won't acknowledge them as far as recording them. Anyway thank you again very much for the ideas. I will keep trying.

I have tried the auto record alternating between using nnot "high def" or nnot "hdtv" both netted the same results. I either get HD returns or the game on local OTA channels like say, 23-1 which still runs up way too much space on the hard drive.

Ahhh. More information! I didn't realize OTA was involved. It seems from another test I ran that when an OTA channel is available in SEARCH results, the HR "assumes" that's what you want, probably since it's the highest quality recording you can make on an HR2x.

I'm not sure if the decision to always choose OTA is a "bug" or a "feature". I suspect the latter. If so, then what's needed is a way to specify an SD channel in the search. NNOT HDTV should do that. Since it doesn't, you might want to again report it as a bug by replying to my HDTV post in the current issues thread. I ran that test on an HR that wasn't connected to an OTA antenna.

As far as channel ranges go, CCHAN 2 100 will only match channels between 2 and 100, so in your case, you probably want to specify CCHAN 8 59, or better still make one AUTORECORD for each channel, since you can't say CCHAN 8 13 59. The search parser won't understand it the way you meant it. They still have some work to do on that front.

Ahhh. More information! I didn't realize OTA was involved. It seems from another test I ran that when an OTA channel is available in SEARCH results, the HR "assumes" that's what you want, probably since it's the highest quality recording you can make on an HR2x.

I'm not sure if the decision to always choose OTA is a "bug" or a "feature". I suspect the latter. If so, then what's needed is a way to specify an SD channel in the search. NNOT HDTV should do that. Since it doesn't, you might want to again report it as a bug by replying to my HDTV post in the current issues thread. I ran that test on an HR that wasn't connected to an OTA antenna.

As far as channel ranges go, CCHAN 2 100 will only match channels between 2 and 100, so in your case, you probably want to specify CCHAN 8 59, or better still make one AUTORECORD for each channel, since you can't say CCHAN 8 13 59. The search parser won't understand it the way you meant it. They still have some work to do on that front.

/steve

Last night I tried the following search: Colts nnot hdtv cchan 8 212 Show Types, Live, finally it netted me at least some of the results I am hoping for.

It still scheduled the Colts vs Titan's game on the OTA channel 23-1 which eats up too much hard drive space, but for the upcoming Colts vs Patriots game it DID actually schedule it for the local NBC affiliate on the SD channel, which is what I have wanted right along! I was extremely pleased that it put both recordings on the TDL immediately. Which it had not been doing. Now if I could get it to pick up the Colts vs Titan's game on channel 23 instead of 23-1 it would be perfect.

All in all this is the most progress I've seen in the two years I've had the HR20-700 so I am pleased. Thank you so much for all of your help, if you hadn't mentioned the channel range part of the search I'd have never remembered it was even possible. Thanks again, so much.

PS. It did take putting in hdtv as opposed to high def to get it to stop listing the game on NFLHD.

Last night I tried the following search: Colts nnot hdtv cchan 8 212 Show Types, Live, finally it netted me at least some of the results I am hoping for.

It still scheduled the Colts vs Titan's game on the OTA channel 23-1 which eats up too much hard drive space, but for the upcoming Colts vs Patriots game it DID actually schedule it for the local NBC affiliate on the SD channel, which is what I have wanted right along! I was extremely pleased that it put both recordings on the TDL immediately. Which it had not been doing. Now if I could get it to pick up the Colts vs Titan's game on channel 23 instead of 23-1 it would be perfect.

All in all this is the most progress I've seen in the two years I've had the HR20-700 so I am pleased. Thank you so much for all of your help, if you hadn't mentioned the channel range part of the search I'd have never remembered it was even possible. Thanks again, so much.

PS. It did take putting in hdtv as opposed to high def to get it to stop listing the game on NFLHD.

Good to hear. You could "uninstall" your OTA antenna if you're not routinely using it for space reasons. That would remove those channels from the available pool SEARCH could match. I realize that's a pain though, and then you won't have it as back-up for weather issues.

I'm going to test this and if I get the same results, report NNOT HDTV not being respected by OTA channels as an "issue".

RE: HDTV. Yes, that works. I could have sworn that "HD" used to work, tho. I'm always looking for ways to shave characters where I can, because of the 50 limit. /steve